Kolektyvinių derybų principai tarptautinėje ir Lietuvos darbo teisėje

Abstract

The article analyses the Conventions of the International Labour Organization (hereinafter ILO) and provisions of the European Social Charter (amended) that define the collective bargaining, their legal nature and principles. The analysis is given on how these principles are transferred into the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania.
While evaluating the provisions of the Labour Code that enforce collective bargaining as a principle and a process and the agreements that follow them it is noted that the Code provides quite a wide range of possibilities of collective bargaining. However, taking into consideration the low number of bargaining for the collective agreement between employers’ and trade unions (hereinafter – social partners), and insufficient level of social partners’ representation, it can be stated that the Labour Code norms alone will not ensure effective bargaining of two parties’. For this end efforts from both social partners and the State are needed for the factual recognition of collective bargaining.
The article presents the principles of collective bargaining formulated by ILO and transferred to the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania to create more humanistic work conditions and the system, ensuring the fundamental human rights in democratic society: the right to freedom of association in national or international organizations, the right to make collective agreements, and the right to bargain collectively.
After generalising the collective bargaining principles, coming from ILO conventions and recommendations that had been enacted in the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania, the following conclusions may be drawn:
The right to bargain collectively is the fundamental right that is fully supported by Lithuania that has joined the ILO and assumed obligations to realise the principles established.
The collective bargaining is an activity or a process, where the collective agreement is prepared and the dispute between social partners- representatives of employers and workers and their organisations - is analysed. In case there are no representatives of workers - trade unions, their organisations - the Labour Code envisages all the rights of collective representation at the level of the institution to the Labour Council, the statute of which and procedure of its composition is provisioned by Law. This ensures the possibility of collective bargaining for all employers and all groups of workers in all branches of economic activity.
The aim of the collective bargaining formulated in the norms of Labour Code is to establish work conditions and additional social and every day allowances, if compared to those already enacted by laws and other normative legal acts, that had not been regulated by labour laws and other normative legal acts before for workers or their separate groups. The aim of the collective bargaining is also to regulate relations between social partners and to provide guarantees for the representatives of workers. Thus the prevention from actions potentially harmful to their status is ensured and the guarantees are made that the representatives of workers are independent from the employer.
The Labour Code envisages the procedures supporting bargaining and ensuring the nature of voluntary negotiation.
The principles of collective bargaining established in the Labour Code provide for constructive actions during the bargaining process, prevent from unjustified delay of the bargaining, ensure respect of the obligations of both parties, honesty, and the possibility to bargain at any level of social partnership.